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GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

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Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#71

Post by stalcottsmith »

papaf wrote: post #58
userbinator wrote: post #48

I believe a civilian has portscanned the whole Internet before via the same thing: http://internetcensus2012.bitbucket.org/paper.html I don't get all the fuss about portscanning is either - anything connected to the Internet will be subjected to packets sent to it because the Internet is public; if you don't want others, government or otherwise, to know that there's a machine present at an IP, then it should be your…

There was a lot of noise when the Heise story was released with people concentrating on the use of nmap and saying that using nmap is not shocking. For me the disturbing thing was the pipeline - nmap, fingerprint, identify weak systems and then compromise those systems. Those compromised systems are then used for further surveillance or attacks. Before the Heise story, I naively believed that this sort of automated a…

> Before the Heise story, I naively believed that this sort of automated attack was only done by organised crime

You were correct.

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#72

Post by coldtea »

innguest wrote: post #26
coldtea wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments are either kept honest by a vigilant population of actual citizens (instead of people only interested in their personal affairs ) or are mostly a tool for the rich and powerful to maintain a favorable order. (The only third alternative to a government for the multitudes and a government for the rich is the direct rule of the rich and powerful without or with minimal government, as in the calls for "deregu…

> as in the calls for "deregulation" which seldom favor the average Joe Can you give an example of deregulation that doesn't favor the average Joe? I can't think of one.

Deregulation in the financial services, which resulted in risky behavior from greedy financiers, and some trillion dollar bailout scheme.

Deregulation in the food industry, allowing certain crappy practices and laxing hugiene standards and protections.

Etc.

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#73

Post by mpyne »

jessaustin wrote: post #53
mpyne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The commonality with NSA and with Swartz is that you have heavy-handed authority figures flagrantly abusing their power with impunity. Read csandreasen's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8205642 Whatever else NSA's been doing, it hasn't been "with impunity", it's been in coordination with allied intelligence agencies (including the German BND that was spying on Turkey, Kerry, and Clinton...), and as Sn…

...it's not the prosecutors' fault that the evidence of what Swartz did was sufficient to cause a grand jury to indict... ...a ham sandwich. Please, let's not pretend that anything happens in a grand jury that is not completely controlled by prosecutors.

If there was no evidence to convict then Aaron had nothing to worry about, ham sandwich or not.

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#74

Post by mpyne »

hnha wrote: post #62
mpyne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The commonality with NSA and with Swartz is that you have heavy-handed authority figures flagrantly abusing their power with impunity. Read csandreasen's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8205642 Whatever else NSA's been doing, it hasn't been "with impunity", it's been in coordination with allied intelligence agencies (including the German BND that was spying on Turkey, Kerry, and Clinton...), and as Sn…

> NSA isn't hacking citizen's computers, except maybe for citizens in non-Five Eyes countries. So just the majority of the world population.

When did ~600 become the majority of the world's population?

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#75

Post by mpyne »

wyager wrote: post #63
mpyne wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How disturbing and/or illegal should it be? I mean, I'm game to make it illegal if it's not already, and it probably already is illegal in the countries where that would be going on. But when I advocated the viewpoint that unauthorized access to computers was illegal and disturbing back with Aaron Swartz, that viewpoint didn't seem as popular at Hacker News for some reason. Likewise when Jeremy Hammond admitted to ha…

Should we not hold the government to a higher standard than random individuals?

By all means. Then the government agent will just walk out the building, put on his "private citizen" ball cap, and resume spying using all the authorities any random citizen would have.

That's why I pointed out the state often has much more power, as we wouldn't bother having the state do it in the first place if anyone could do it for themselves.

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#76

Post by lotsofmangos »

sespindola wrote: post #57
lotsofmangos wrote: post #2

We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun. Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That’s lost. We know how to read every promise in faces — the latest stage of morphology. The poetry of the billboards lasted twenty years. We are bored in the city, we really have to strain to still discover mysteries on the sidewalk bi…

I somehow doubt that GCHQ geeks read anti-modernist manifestos. Depending on the age of the name pickers, I'd say they either went to the Hacienda nightclub at Manchester or saw 24 hours party people[1]. 1: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274309/

Tony Wilson read that manifesto. That is where the name comes from for his nightclub.

Edit - and I wouldn't like to bet on what GCHQ geeks don't read. I suspect their reading is very wide.

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#77

Post by jessaustin »

mpyne wrote: post #73
jessaustin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...it's not the prosecutors' fault that the evidence of what Swartz did was sufficient to cause a grand jury to indict... ...a ham sandwich. Please, let's not pretend that anything happens in a grand jury that is not completely controlled by prosecutors.

If there was no evidence to convict then Aaron had nothing to worry about, ham sandwich or not.

I don't think even most prosecutors would have the balls to say something as fucked-up as that. One who scoffs at the threat of criminal court proceedings, in this nation, does so from a very privileged position. A more charitable person than I would hope you never have the misfortune to discover how wrong you are.

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#78

Post by jessaustin »

mpyne wrote: post #74
hnha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NSA isn't hacking citizen's computers, except maybe for citizens in non-Five Eyes countries. So just the majority of the world population.

When did ~600 become the majority of the world's population?

Please re-read GP.

Re: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance

#80

Post by mpyne »

jessaustin wrote: post #77
mpyne wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was no evidence to convict then Aaron had nothing to worry about, ham sandwich or not.

I don't think even most prosecutors would have the balls to say something as fucked-up as that. One who scoffs at the threat of criminal court proceedings, in this nation, does so from a very privileged position. A more charitable person than I would hope you never have the misfortune to discover how wrong you are.

What I'm saying is that you cannot have your cake here and eat it too.

Strong laws? Great, you'll have an Aaron Swartz every 5 years at least, especially as long as those laws continue to make common-sense computer crimes like breaking into a subnet (now matter how easy or difficult that was to do technically!) legal crimes as well.

Weak laws? That's fine too, but don't be surprised what a dedicated "advanced persistent threat" can do under a weak legal regime.

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